David al-Mukammas

David al-Mukammas, in full David Abū Sulaymān Ibn Marwān Ar-raqqī Al-mukammas, also called David Ha-bavli, (flourished 900, Raqqah, Syria), Syrian philosopher and polemicist, regarded as the father of Jewish medieval philosophy.

A young convert to Christianity, al-Mukammas studied at the Syriac academy of Nisibis but became disillusioned with its doctrines and wrote two famous polemics against the Christian religion. While he is considered a Jewish scholar by both Jews and Muslims, it is not entirely clear whether al-Mukammas returned fully to Judaism. Faulting Christianity for the impurity of its monotheism, he also attacked Islām; he maintained that the style of the Qurʾān did not prove its divine origin.

Al-Mukammas was almost unknown until the late 19th century, and the details of his life remain uncertain. The publication in 1885 of a commentary included a Hebrew translation from the Arabic of a small segment of al-Mukammas’ ʿIshrūn maqālāt (“Twenty Treatises”). Then, in 1898, 15 of the 20 “treatises” were discovered in the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg.

Al-Mukammas was the first Jewish thinker to introduce the methods of kalam (Arab religious philosophy) into Judaism and the first Jew to mention Aristotle in his writings. He cited Greek and Arab authorities, but his own Jewishness was not apparent in his writings, for he never quoted the Bible. Among the subjects presented in ʿIshrūn maqālāt are a proof of God’s existence and his creation of the world, a discussion of the reality of science, the substantial and accidental composition of the world, the utility of prophecy and prophets, and the signs of true prophets and prophecy. Al-Mukammas also wrote on Jewish sects.